1. The systematic study of the use of medicinal plants by specific cultural groups.
2. The study and use of plants, fungi, animals, microorganisms, and minerals; as well as, their biological and pharmacological applications.
3. A combination of the approaches of medical anthropology, phytotherapy, and pharmaceutical science, this discipline examines medicinal plants in indigenous cultures, their bioactive compounds, and the sustainable development and the production of nature-derived therapeutics.

Ethnopharmacologists are particularly concerned with local people’s rights to further use and develop their autochthonous (place of origin; indigenous, native) resources.

Today’s ethnopharmacological research embraces multidisciplinary efforts in the:

• documentation of indigenous medical knowledge.
• scientific study of indigenous medicines in order to contribute in the long-run to improved health care in the regions of the studies.
• search for pharmacologically unique principles from existing indigenous remedies.
• combinations of such diverse fields as anthropology, pharmacology, pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical biology, natural product chemistry, toxicology, clinical research, and plant physiology.